Eights months after the attack that killed four Americans in Libya, the news on Benghazi just kept coming this week.

Wednesday’s House committee hearings didn’t result in dramatic revelations — but they were enough for Republicans and their allies to hail them as a major advance in the investigation. Then came the the report of a series of emails documenting how the long-maligned talking points evolved with input from the White House and the State Department.

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Carney defends Benghazi emails in heated briefing

Hicks recounts Benghazi attack

Here are POLITICO’s five things learned about the continuing political fallout this week:

Hillary Clinton’s more than just the subtext

In the beginning, Republicans used Benghazi to derail Susan Rice’s path to succeed Clinton at the State Department, while the former secretary of state enjoyed relative deference on the issue from the other side of the aisle. No more. As the House Oversight Committee hearing made clear, Clinton – whose name was mentioned 32 times – is now the GOP’s primary target.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), at the start of on a weekend trip to Iowa where he’s meeting with a host of activists important to a 2016 campaign, said Clinton is “absolutely responsible” for the Benghazi attack. He also wrote on Twitter that “Benghazi proves that Hilary Clinton should never hold high office again.”

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who traveled to Libya on his own fact-finding mission, said Clinton will be haunted by her January Senate committee hearing response to Sen. Ron Johnson’s (R-Wis.) question why the U.S. compound at Benghazi was attacked.

“Her comment about, ‘What difference does it make?’ will live with her forever,” Chaffetz told POLITICO Friday. “That is so cold-hearted, I think that is what she really believes. But to do it in such a public setting is really going to live with her forever.”

Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas), a firebrand conservative, said Friday that Obama, Clinton and Rice “blatantly lied” to protect the president during his re-election campaign.

David Axelrod, the architect of Obama’s two winning presidential campaigns, said it was clear to him that nothing but presidential politics was driving any of it.

On Twitter, Axelrod wrote that he “can’t help but feeling that If Ken Salazar were the front runner for ‘16, the House GOP (would) be holding hearings on the BP oil spill.”

Clinton herself has strenuously avoided the topic since she appeared at House and Senate hearings in January. She delivered a speech Wednesday night in California that didn’t make mention of the House hearings held hours earlier.

“We truly still today, despite all of our partisan wrangling and the gridlock that sometimes seems to take hold, we stand up for the rights and opportunities of all people,” was the closest Clinton came to addressing it.

White House attempts to put out the fire only fueled it

From the beginning, the Obama administration’s nothing-to-see-here public attitude to the Benghazi attacks and response has only driven more interest from Republicans and the conservative media.

Obama himself took aim at Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) when they made Rice the center of questions for her appearance on the Sunday morning shows to relay the White House talking points. White House press secretary Jay Carney has repeatedly dismissed additional questions about the event as efforts to carry water for Republicans.

Carney on Friday blamed both Mitt Romney and congressional Republicans for politicizing the attack as he sought to downplay both the newsworthiness of the Benghazi fallout and the amount of attention the GOP has paid to the administration’s response.

“It’s a big deal because Republicans have chosen, in the latest iterations of their efforts, to politicize it,” Carney said. “There is an ongoing effort to make something political out of it, but the problem with that effort is that it’s never been clear what they think they are accusing the administration of doing.”